Newby on the block... well, to casting anyways.

[Insanity]

I stumbled across a batch of around 300 of the Hunters that must have been from when I was using the brass mold. I weighed and sorted them to within my current tolerances and culled about 50% of them. Back in the pot the rest of them go.



Unintended derp edit...

Its funny how you get more and more picky as you progress along.

[avator]

I stumbled across a batch of around 300 of the Hunters that must have been from when I was using the brass mold. I weighed and sorted them to within my current tolerances and culled about 50% of them. Back in the pot the rest of them go.



Unintended derp edit...

Its funny how you get more and more picky as you progress along.

I think in this case it was more about what shoots and what don't. I just have better success at consistence with aluminum molds than brass.

[2A Georgia]

Yep.. I have enough 2" black abs to run it through between the buildings like I didn't the electric. I would fish it through that one but I don't think the electric will play nice with the signal if I do. It's only a 25 or 30' span between the 2 buildings. And I don't mow in that area so it will be safe from any damage and not have to go overhead.

I fired up the pot and cast the first hundred this morning. Pretty much the same results as yesterday. At this point I have a full tin of the 19.40 and about a 3/4 of the 19.60. I put the 19.40 in the tumbler and I'll do the same with the 19.60 once the tin is full.

Yes the electric will interfere if in the same pull.  Glad you are going underground in conduit.  I had a neighbor in our starter home community that had to have a backyard jacuzzi.  Ran to the panel box with Romex laying on the ground...two months later the panel burned most of his garage but fortunately the FD put it out before it got to the house.  Very nice setup PID crucible control, pre-heated mold and A/C regulated ambient temperature and humidity.  Plus a cool place to watch the idiot box while sorting/QC casts.  Kudos!

[2A Georgia]

The PID is more stable now.  Still a little over-dampening, but we'll see what auto-tune settles on.
I cleaned and lubed my second 217RF20 mold.  Apparently it is in better condition.  It's a little tight but no vertical seams and the few over flashing and under-casts I know are my technique.  The pseudo pressure pour at about 310-315C seams to fill out a perfect pellet.  Still about half re-pots, but mostly on me.  I did cast about ten 20.1-20.4 than had no apparent imperfections.  Tracking says the MP Mold will arrive from across the pond this week (before the Accurate Mold custom).  Looking at ordering the 220BT30 from NOE with the HP should drop around 27.5-28, which will be easier to push than the 35+ gr MP slugs, but time will tell....

[avator]

Yep.. I have enough 2" black abs to run it through between the buildings like I didn't the electric. I would fish it through that one but I don't think the electric will play nice with the signal if I do. It's only a 25 or 30' span between the 2 buildings. And I don't mow in that area so it will be safe from any damage and not have to go overhead.

I fired up the pot and cast the first hundred this morning. Pretty much the same results as yesterday. At this point I have a full tin of the 19.40 and about a 3/4 of the 19.60. I put the 19.40 in the tumbler and I'll do the same with the 19.60 once the tin is full.

I'm now struggling with the reasoning behind keeping electrical and Ethernet separate. Our ISP provider supplied us with the Plume WiFi pod. This creature plugs directly into a wall outlet. It provides the wifi and allows a wired connection. I'm not sure if I could get any closer to electrical than that?
I wonder how bad the signal would degrade if I ran outdoor cat6 through about 25'of the abs along with the electrical to the building.
 

[avator]

Poured a batch of 100 this morning between puttering in the Casting Cabin with the same basic results. I hung a few more signs and flags and put my 12v/110v mini fridge in there for cold drinks.

[Mr.P]

I'm not sure how tumbling would increase the diameter. Logic would tell me that, if anything, it would decrease the diameter due to them bumping and rubbing against one another. I suppose a could measure so samples before and after.
For me, tumbling just makes them smoother and slicker.

That makes sense, thanks. 

I had the same reaction you did - seems counterintuitive.  When they tumble they gradually become more round which means widening and shortening.  It might take a while to have a measurable effect though. 

[avator]

I'm not sure how tumbling would increase the diameter. Logic would tell me that, if anything, it would decrease the diameter due to them bumping and rubbing against one another. I suppose a could measure so samples before and after.
For me, tumbling just makes them smoother and slicker.

That makes sense, thanks. 

I had the same reaction you did - seems counterintuitive.  When they tumble they gradually become more round which means widening and shortening.  It might take a while to have a measurable effect though.

Yeah, I can see where the skirts may widen but I don't see how the heads would.. unless I'm just not getting MY head around it. I might need to do some exploring with the calipers. I'm not so sure I want to put that much time and effort into it if I'm getting good results downrange.
I mean at some point, if our time invested has value, we may be reducing the savings compared to buying commercially.

[WobblyHand]

Finally had both motivation and a decent day to do some casting.  I don't have an indoor casting corner, so I have to opportunistically set up outside.  Today I tried casting the BBT 27gr in 0.22 caliber (NOE 217-30-FN-BJ5).  Took me a bit to settle in on the right temperature.  Hey, I forget stuff after awhile!  Out of practice - need to fix that.  Ran the lead at 345C to 350C and cast a bunch.  Haven't sorted them out yet.  My electronic scale only reads to grains, not tenths of a grain.  So I need to drag out my 40 YRO Redding reloading single beam scale.  The Redding has no damping, so it takes a bit to settle out.  Tomorrow I'll sort them.  A random pick of 4 weighed 28.4 +/- 0.1 grain, which is somewhat encouraging.

[2A Georgia]

Pics in what did you receive thread, but I soaped the pins on my Accurate Molds 30-62A.
Pre-heated open mold at 400F
Threw the first two drop back in the pot.
Threw some beeswax in for dross and rested the mold over the pot for smoke (even though there are no pins)
The first pair had to be tapped to fall out.
Then the magic began perfect slugs drop right out with no tapping out of the mold and ZERO rejects.
Sadly I have purified my 40:1 or simply only have 99.9% left as these dropped at .302 and 63.6 to 64.0 very consistent.
I lowered the PID target to 325 and the auto tune seams to be holding tighter and warmer.
A few more runs on auto and I'll log the settings the bot selected and see if I can adjust for a mild overshoot and then dampen a hair (another later projecct).
Need to order some new 40:1 RotoMetals.
I will put all these back in the pot to try tomorrow in the MP 35gr 5.55mm which arrived today as well.

[2A Georgia]

I saved the heaviest 64gr from the Accurate 30-62A truncated cone slugs for the .303 Challenger.  They were pure lead so they droppped at .302 and I assumed they wouldn't group so I only saved 10 and put the rest in the pot for MP35 slugs.  The 3000psi fill I went with is too low and chrono was around 65-75fpe...BUT.....the sonofagun's where 8for8 on the 1" spoon at 15 yards once I corrected hold over.  I may cast a "trial" batch to test 3800-4000psi starting fills.  RotMetals 40:1 is on the way so tru 40"1 should drop at .303 and we should have a winner finally.
I will post more on the MP35grain in the casting thread......
Soaped pins.
With the extra spru handle I didn't preheat in over, just on the crubible.
Beeswax smoked
Potted the first cast
Then IIDMP 8 perfect slugs per cycle.
The picture is Left to Right 34.6 (no blemishes), .34.7, 34.8 and a huge pile of 34.9/35.0 then the rejects pile.
Rejected 3 @ 35.2 that probably are just fine, and everything 34.5-....eyeballing less than 15% rejects on my first run.
I will probably just tin these going forward and reject any blemishes as I load (less than 1.5% weight variance)
I am really hopeful the Notos can push these monsters they are super easy to cast

[avator]

Well... if their vote counted I'm pretty sure "Casting Cabin" would be renamed to "The Dog House".

[2A Georgia]

I know the postman letter-carrier was cursing me, I found and 8x10 box in front of my garage door.....yup my 50 pounds of 40:1 from RotoMetals came in yesterday.
My theory was correct, they filled out at .3030 for the 63.5gr and .3037 for the 64.6gr.  For reference the NSA 61.5s that stack are .3034-.3035.
I sorted in .2gr groups 63.5,63.7,63.9.64.1, 64.3 and 64.5
The yellow sweatshirt bin are the back to the pot sub 63.5 again eyeballing 10-15% rejects.  The loose to the right are 64.7 that I'm going to shoot in the backyard range.  Might try the 4,000psi tune and see how these group at .3037 diameter.
BTW Accurate is dead on spec as I stated 40:1 .302 +0.002/-0.000!
The calibration of the thermocouple seams to be helping and I am casting at 310-330C (still working on auto tune and parameters).
The "near pressure pour" distance on the downspout is also helping.
I'm really pleased with how quickly and cleanly this mold casts.  Keeping my fingers crossed for testing/grouping.

[WobblyHand]

Well that last casting run was bigger than I expected.  Cast over 550 22 cal BBT slugs.  The mold comes with two sets of pins, but beats me what weight these should be.  About 50 of them were wildly overweight because the screw holding in the hollow point pins backed out!  They were weird looking things, kind of had snouts.
403 of them were centered around 28.3 grains.  21 were less than 28 gr, probably due to hesitated or cold pours.

wt. grains  #
28.0            9
28.1.         32
28.2          93
28.3        171
28.4        139
28.5          22

They are not as well filled out (there's a few minor wrinkles) as I'd like, but this is a good start.  They fit my 2240, although they will be arcing their way to the target.  My PP700SA is a tight fit, but I can shoot them with a push stick to start them.  Probably ought to size them for the PP700SA.  Anyways, I'll be trying them out in my other stuff as well.

[Madd Hatter]

Well that last casting run was bigger than I expected.  Cast over 550 22 cal BBT slugs.  The mold comes with two sets of pins, but beats me what weight these should be.  About 50 of them were wildly overweight because the screw holding in the hollow point pins backed out!  They were weird looking things, kind of had snouts.
403 of them were centered around 28.3 grains.  21 were less than 28 gr, probably due to hesitated or cold pours.

wt. grains  #
28.0            9
28.1.         32
28.2          93
28.3        171
28.4        139
28.5          22

They are not as well filled out (there's a few minor wrinkles) as I'd like, but this is a good start.  They fit my 2240, although they will be arcing their way to the target.  My PP700SA is a tight fit, but I can shoot them with a push stick to start them.  Probably ought to size them for the PP700SA.  Anyways, I'll be trying them out in my other stuff as well.

Those are the weirdest looking noses I've ever seen. Might just be the way they look in the picture but it looks like you really need to adj the pins. They look like they're to low.

[WobblyHand]

Well that last casting run was bigger than I expected.  Cast over 550 22 cal BBT slugs.  The mold comes with two sets of pins, but beats me what weight these should be.  About 50 of them were wildly overweight because the screw holding in the hollow point pins backed out!  They were weird looking things, kind of had snouts.
403 of them were centered around 28.3 grains.  21 were less than 28 gr, probably due to hesitated or cold pours.

wt. grains  #
28.0            9
28.1.         32
28.2          93
28.3        171
28.4        139
28.5          22

They are not as well filled out (there's a few minor wrinkles) as I'd like, but this is a good start.  They fit my 2240, although they will be arcing their way to the target.  My PP700SA is a tight fit, but I can shoot them with a push stick to start them.  Probably ought to size them for the PP700SA.  Anyways, I'll be trying them out in my other stuff as well.

Those are the weirdest looking noses I've ever seen. Might just be the way they look in the picture but it looks like you really need to adj the pins. They look like they're to low.

The screw that holds the pin in place had backed out while casting.  I got about 50 where this slowly happened.  I didn't notice it at first, but later, closing the mold got harder and harder.  Then I looked at the mold and flipped it over to see the screw was about to fall off.  Screwed it back in and got back to work.  Those three little pigs will be going back in the pot!  Just wanted to show a picture of the snouts, because, yeah, they were weird.

Here are some more normal looking ones.  Sorry the focus is not as good as last time.

[2A Georgia]

Well that last casting run was bigger than I expected.  Cast over 550 22 cal BBT slugs.  The mold comes with two sets of pins, but beats me what weight these should be.  About 50 of them were wildly overweight because the screw holding in the hollow point pins backed out!  They were weird looking things, kind of had snouts.
403 of them were centered around 28.3 grains.  21 were less than 28 gr, probably due to hesitated or cold pours.

wt. grains  #
28.0            9
28.1.         32
28.2          93
28.3        171
28.4        139
28.5          22

They are not as well filled out (there's a few minor wrinkles) as I'd like, but this is a good start.  They fit my 2240, although they will be arcing their way to the target.  My PP700SA is a tight fit, but I can shoot them with a push stick to start them.  Probably ought to size them for the PP700SA.  Anyways, I'll be trying them out in my other stuff as well.

Bruce if you have a Notos I'd be curious how they (your BBT slugs) group.  I have the 35gr MP Molds monster slugs.  Not sure how the 20fpe Notos is going to push them.  The pp800r  fed them fine, but they are just a tad too long for the mag so SST only

[WobblyHand]

Don't have a Notos yet.  Been eyeing one for a while though!  Although I shot a couple out of my 2240, a couple of days ago, last night the slugs got stuck in the barrel.  Might be at the end of the cartridge though.  Had to use a rod to get the (single) slugs out. 

I use a small aluminum bar to seat the slug in my PP700SA, which is a weird thing to be doing with a cocked gun.  It won't fire a projectile since the transfer block is not in place, but it could discharge air. 

Today I will slug the barrel and see what I get.  Dang slug is small and hard to hold while measuring.  I probably need to do that under magnification and a lot more light, can't see what I'm doing. 

[2A Georgia]

Don't have a Notos yet.  Been eyeing one for a while though!  Although I shot a couple out of my 2240, a couple of days ago, last night the slugs got stuck in the barrel.  Might be at the end of the cartridge though.  Had to use a rod to get the (single) slugs out. 

I use a small aluminum bar to seat the slug in my PP700SA, which is a weird thing to be doing with a cocked gun.  It won't fire a projectile since the transfer block is not in place, but it could discharge air. 

Today I will slug the barrel and see what I get.  Dang slug is small and hard to hold while measuring.  I probably need to do that under magnification and a lot more light, can't see what I'm doing.

So Say we all.  I'm 6-3 with guitar player sized hands .22 slugs are comical tiny, .177 pellets are slapstik frustrating...lol

[2A Georgia]

Okay more story line in search of the perfect .3035 cast slug.
Last night I put some steel wool on a .25" dowel and hand polished my Lee .303 sizer to .3034-.3036
I have about 2 mags of "grey light powder" test subjects (some dummy coated with the negative lead but no electricity on).
Tonight I put the new Wallyworld 8" cheapy fan just above the level of the top of the pot and cast up a batch of Accurate Molds 3062A (first picture).
I love this mold!
Remembered to turn on the Electro-Static and dusted them (with a sheet of lubricated aluminum foil over my cookie tray) - second photo.
Twenty minutes later I pulled beautiful jet black slugs out of the yard sale toaster over.  They're still too hot to measure as coated, but they will get sized tomorrow (third photo).  If I can get everything loaded up I can LGR test them for groups Thursday.